prisoners find beyond their dignity, female inmates often refuse to receive medical care outside the facility or attend court hearings.172 A practice of placing prisoners in a solitary confinement in the Institution N5 as a form of disciplinary punishment has decreased, which is undoubtedly a positive development. Since January 2014 disciplinary punishment were imposed om 55 prisoners including 3 cases of the placement in solitary confinement, 8 cases of the placement in a closed confinement while 5 prisoners were restricted an access to the outside world (restriction on family visitation – 2, restriction of phone conversation – 3). Other cases entailed reprimands and warnings. There were 75 cases of a hunger strike from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014. The grounds for these strikes were claims and complaints related to health services, revisions of criminal proceedings and fairness of pardoning procedures. There were 3 attempts of suicide in the Institution N5 during 2014. None of them yielded fatal outcomes. It is worth noting that Institution 5 joined the Suicide Prevention Programme in the summer 2014. According to the latest data 7 female convicts have been enrolled in the Programme. 219 prisoners were transferred to various medical facilities during the reporting period; 37 of them were referred to the penitentiary medical facility while 182 were transferred to hospitals outside the system. The Institution N5 homes a doctors’ office, also the cabinets of surgery, gynecology, a dentist’s, a room for manipulations and intensive observation. Also, the medical staff are qualified to take samples for TB and HIV/AIDS tests. Female prisoners are a special category with specific requirements and therefore it is critical that these needs be assessed regularly and special programs developed on a regular basis. Prisoners have an access to showers from 10 AM to 8 PM. Cells in the institution are not heated adequately and in spite of the fact that the convicts have to do dishes and wash clothes, also take care of their personal hygiene during late hours, they do not have hot running water in their cells. There are significant problems related to the lack of hygienic items. More specifically, the administration fails to provide female inmates with pads which are only allowed in small quantities as a part of a parcel. The ones available in a shop are reportedly of poor quality. Often prisoners use unhygienic items which may cause a serious threat to their health. There are restrictions on other hygienic items as well. The monitoring team also looked at the conditions of mothers and children. There are 12 rooms and a playroom in the institution. There were 6 mothers and 6 children 172 According to the UN Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (the Bangkok Rules), Rules 19 and 20 effective measures shall be taken to ensure that women prisoners’ dignity and respect are protected during personal searches, which shall only be carried out by women staff who have been properly trained in appropriate searching methods and in accordance with established procedures. Alternative screening methods, such as scans, shall be developed to replace strip searches and invasive body searches, in order to avoid the harmful psychological and possible physical impact of invasive body searches. 136 NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM OF GEORGIA